Learning has no limits; either you live by it or it leaves you!

All of us know what is “Learning” and would say – oh, that’s very simple! Irony is that there are not many, who have a right understanding or do a right job!! It is because of that, most of us don’t have real taste of learning!

Learning is one of few things, which has very unique characteristics. Learning knows no limit. It evolves and enhances, as long as you live with it and use it. It starts to languish and weaken, when you believe you have learnt enough! What you have learnt would start to exit and extinct, when you don’t use it!

Continuous learning is essential for continuous development. Everyone wants his/her development; but lacks desire to learn and hence, they cannot go where they want to. In corporate and communities, nearly everyone takes pleasure in talking about importance of constant learning; but very few are able to fathom what it really means!

Learning has to lead to incremental knowledge, induction to Change and inspiration to implement! This is when new competencies crop up and existing ones get enhanced!! Learning also means a change in character and correction in perceptions.

Reckon the reality – if above does not happen, believe me your learning is fractured or faulty! Such learning is nothing but information gathering, which can’t be gainfully used.

Best learning is when –

You have sincere desire to develop self.

You aim to become better than before and improve your personality.

You are open minded.

You are free from fear and frustration.

You are focused and flexible.

You don’t choose your learning by fame or familiarity.

You are not swayed by position, power, popularity or prosperity of people, from whom you want to learn.

You are biased.Your biases are always biggest barriers to your learning.

You have ego.Ego is your worst enemy! Materially developed societies and prosperous people tend to give cold shoulder to learning, essentially because of their ego. This is one of factors why they are currently facing monetary and moral decline!

You focus on people, who are ahead of you and not behind.
People tend to have phobia, fascination and fantasy for people, who have fame and name; but often no strong character or persona. You feel obsessed to follow them. This is a farce and falsehood, which would fail you in your learning!

You hate to learn from whom you don’t like!
Often, the best learning comes from your bête noire!! What you can learn from your foes, you can’t do it from your friends.

You are over confident.
Over confidence means arrogance and that can convert your learning into an illusion.

You are complacent and in comfort zone.
It would kill your desire to develop more, do better and make a difference during your life time.

You are dogmatic, bureaucratic or bound by boundaries of your beliefs. These attributes could be a severe impeding and limiting factor in your learning.

You are unable to draw a proper line between realism and religion.

You make light of or laugh at those, who want to always learn.
Such people are poor learner and often exaggerate what they know. There are also people, who feel shy to learn for fear of being seen in poor light.

Moral of Learning

Get your definition right of “Learning”!

No learning is real, unless it:

Incrementally changes your character, wisdom and as a consequence, brings better capabilities and new competencies.

Induces your appetite to learn more and implement.

Inculcates politeness and humility.

Inspires change or/and innovation.

Learning has to be all inclusive – for dos and don’ts, from friends and foes, from good and bad. In other words, learn you must from every situation you are in. It is just a question of your attitude and practice.

Should one focus one’s learning to a single area or be like a sponge and absorb everything?
I have met both kinds of people. The focused people tend to do better in their careers, but their perspective seems limited.

So do you learn to meet a goal, or do you learn because you want to know new things?

We must focus on area or goal/s, where we want to go. Setting goal is like selecting a destination. So to begin with, we have to focus on learning the route to get there. If we select multiple goals/destinations or no destination, we would lose our way; get confused.

It is quite possible that one has not selected goal or destination correctly. But, he/she has to start his/her journey in any case and as part of learning, he/she should be flexible to change the goal, when he/she realizes that selection is not working.

Now, real learning comes when you deal with various situations continuously in your journey towards goal – barriers, challenges, discomfort, conflicts, simple and difficult people, successes and failures, moving and deciding efficiently and so on. You would discover new things too.

You would agree that learning to manage these successfully has nothing to do with your specific goal; such learning applies to every type of goal or area. This is how you should learn to deal with situations and people; as also areas in adjacent space of your goal/s.

So, goal only determines the destination; learning really comes through your journey to get there. Problems would come for the people, who are purely focused on goal and not on journey. It is they, who tend to have very limited perspective!

…and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing I guess… learning new things every week through your posts. Couldn’t agree with you more!!

And let me tell you too, learning is never easy – ask me!! 🙁 It takes a lot!!

Every year end, I feel like I knew everything, only to realize that I wasn’t aware of “something”!! :O

I personally think learning never stops!! The day you stop learning, you stop living!! And you really have to be unprejudiced enough to keep learning, as you rightly mentioned too…

I’ve learnt from people… right from the dumbest to the smartest of them!! I’ve learnt from failures, from successes (whatever little I have 🙁 ). It never ends really!! And as I respond to your post, I learned that there’s a veteran out there who thinks quite the same way as I do!! 😉

You have correctly mentioned that Learning is Living and it implies that there is no alternative to learning. When we understand that truly, we would start to feel ease with learning! Further, learning happens with no relation to space, time and type of people or situation.

Martina Scholtzova has sent you a message.
Date: 5/04/2013
Subject: RE: Learning has no limits; either you live by it or it leaves you!

Dear Murli,

I am enjoying each of your articles, thank you very much for sharing!

I too am pretty active in writing particularly nowadays, when finalizing my MBA studies. I am writing a diploma thesis about management and ethics. It will be in Slovak language but I am thinking about translating and publishing via my blog in English too. You might have noticed that I am running a survey that would help me find out more about ethics and management.

Please would you help me by contributing your thoughts as well? I also would appreciate if you could share this link within your business network.

How shall I thank you for your valuable views? It gives me great satisfaction and inspiration that you enjoy these articles!

I am very pleased to know about your current activities and MBA studies. I wish you excellent success. Writing to share your sincere thoughts is a noble activity. Please continue your focus on it; it can bring you immense knowledge and benefits.

Arundhati Deshmukh has sent you a message.
Date: 5/03/2013
Subject: RE: Learning has no limits; either you live by it or it leaves you!

Dear Sir,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. It is indeed helpful for us.

Yesterday I finished reading “Jonathan Livingstone Seagull”. It is a great book which talks on “Learning and being free”

I think i read the book quite late in life. I should’ve read it in school may be. Now i’ll make sure my daughter( 2.5yrs) reads it at an appropriate age.
The best idea the book gives is, your body is shape of your thought. If you think and believe in your thought, your body can achieve it.

And another important aspect about learning is, giving your learning back to new gen.

Your blog today reflects the both the concepts. Thanks for sharing it.